The personal blog of Peter Lee a.k.a. "China Hand"... Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel, and an open book to those who read. You are welcome to contact China Matters at the address chinamatters --a-- prlee.org or follow me on twitter @chinahand.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Sepia Mutiny added to blogroll

When China Matters got named in that “5 blogs that make me think” thingee, I didn’t do anything, mainly because the China blogs I read were all taken already.

However, I do have a list of non-Chinese blogs that make me think, mainly because they provide an inside look on places and people that I know very little about.

It offers a vision of what a great group blog by Chinese writers and accessible to Western readers would look like—if the Chinese writers were Anglophone, informed, thoughtful, and good natured and not embroiled in the Taiwan vs. PRC, Communism vs. democracy, US vs. China, patriotism vs. human rights, spy vs. spy, troll vs. troll censored, monitored, and paranoid state of incipient flamewar that seems to hang over the China blogosphere like a dark cloud sometimes.

...and link to a eye-popping post about an incident on American Airlines where a vigilante passenger walked up behind a distinguished architect, Seth Stein, put him in a headlock, and rifled his belongings because Stein fitted his personal profile of a terrorist: he was brown (actually rich-guy tanned, not Arab-guy swarthy), had used the bathroom, and was carrying an iPod.

Reactions of other passengers and the airline add up to a feel-good story about how individual human decency flourishes even in an atmosphere of government-fostered paranoia—not!

7 comments:

oh how awful those "paranoic" chinese bloggers, mr ch, if you had thrown in "xenophic" or "nationalistic" , there might be a vacancy for you at the asian war street journal editorial board. [sic]

it might help those "paranoic" chinese though, not to be obcessed with china vs usa, if uncle sham hasnt labelled china a "strategic rival" [i heard they almost want to put it on the axis of evil fraternity], some kind of evil force that needed to be "contained" by a posse including india, ring it with military bases, erect a missile shield system that everybody knows is aimed to neutralised china's puny deterrent nuclear force. it would also help to quell their obcession with taiwan if uncle sham had not declared tw under its protection and stop selling arms to the chen regime, they probably wont be so defensive about humanrights if uncle sham has not been demonising china 24/7/365 about thing like "genocide" in tibet , falungong and all that jazz, ask your cia or ned to stop mounting destabilising campaign in china [you do know that tianamen was a ned destabilising campaign dont you] then there wont be so much spy vs spy hysterics going perhaps?

to put it another way, would your favoured bloggers, those anglophiles you know, be so sanguine and good natured -- if us had organised a posse including china to contain india, declared kashmir or nagaland as a us protege,sold arms to kashmiris separtists, invites separatists leaders from kashmir and the north east to testify alleged abuses on captital hill [like his majesty the dalai lama], highlight india's humanrights problems 24/7/365 and send in cia , er, i mean ned operatives to agitate for popular rebellion?

Thanks your comment, denk, though I must say it kinda feeds my longing for a more genteel type of blog discourse, where I don't have to worry about getting my figurative head ripped off, stir fried, and served back to me with a heaping side order of anger and contempt. Then again, if there weren't so many crucial China-related issues that aroused so much passion, there wouldn't be much worth blogging about. If you have something substantive about the role of the National Endowment for Democracy in the Tian An Men affair, please post it.Thanks.

Coudert. In other words, a cold war waged under the leadership of the United States, with constant threat of attack against China, led by Formosa and other Far Eastern groups, and militarily backed by the United States?

one day i might even write a three thousand pages book documenting us hostilities , overt and covert , towards china since its inception.

your reference to "paranoic" chinese reminds me about the kind of blame the victim hysterics from the msm, which decried chinese "nationalism" after the spy plane clash over hainan island...."How long can one country be subjected to murderous attacks from the United States before it begins to complain? But if China does complain, the United States decries this as 'nationalism."

a yank asked the chinese posters in a forum some yrs back, "why do chinese show such "anti americanism", why do they behave as if there's a chip on their shoulders, i dont see this behaviour with the indians or japanese, for example?"wow, "anti americanism" ? [sic]

i am not surprised about the indians [and the japanese] love fest with the yanks, after all, they are supposed to be us natural partner to "contain" that yellow peril plague and they had been promised super stardom by uncle sham.

but if i were u, i'd be surprised by the surprising high proportion of chinese [42%] who DONT show enimity towards the us. either they are as clueless as some dumbed down yanks [obviously not you, u know a lot dont you?] about what the us has been dishing out to their country, or they are so magnificently magnanimous towards their persecutors for the past five decades.....after all, the chinese are "paranoic" about the u.s. for a reason , dont they?